Since 2002, Organic/Mechanic has been the personal website of Adam Harvey.

A Further Examination of Beard Oil & Its Ramifications

Way back in September of 2013, I wrote a post about what it was like to lose my beard oil vir­gin­i­ty. I’ve come a fair dis­tance since Beard Oil & Its Ramifications, and I thought this might be a good time to re­vis­it the is­sue. My beard is not as frig­gin’ huge as it was back in September. My beard is like a bram­ble patch, and I’m still in the process of fig­ur­ing out if there’s a low-has­sle way to mit­i­gate that. I don’t re­al­ly mind hav­ing a face that looks like there’s a pu­bic bush grow­ing out of it, as long as I can keep my chin-hedge prop­er­ly clipped.

Beard oil doesn’t help with that. I have dis­cov­ered that I like how it changes the feel of the beard, and I am very in­trigued by the scent pos­si­bil­i­ties. It should be clear that in gen­er­al, I’m cheap, and I’m picky. Know that be­fore read­ing on. I’ve done a bit of re­search, and here’s what I’ve tried out so far:

My friend Jerika rec­om­mend­ed this one to me, at $10 (plus ship­ping) it’s about as in­ex­pen­sive as you can find beard oil, and it has a pleas­ant but unas­sum­ing woodsy scent. I’ve been us­ing it as my dai­ly beard oil, and it’s done the job very well. You can al­so place a cus­tom or­der re­quest and get pret­ty much any scent you’d care for. The or­der came with a sam­ple of the cof­fee-scent­ed oil, and I was a big fan.

By far the brand clos­est to my black heart. Everything Bath Sabbath makes is met­al-themed, and they’ve got bitch­in’ graph­ic de­sign. I couldn’t pass up try­ing their Odin beard oil ($10 plus ship­ping). If you like sweet­er & more flo­ral scents for your beard, a stronger scent, or a beard oil that’s a bit thick­er than stan­dard, make a run for this. Spiced Mead is right on for the de­scrip­tion. Think wild­flow­er hon­ey, drink­ing from mead horns while out­side, in the dark, some­thing slavers. I was con­tact­ed by the pro­pri­etor af­ter leav­ing my Etsy re­view, and she said she’d send me a sam­ple of her up­com­ing Cernunnos scent.

I just re­cent­ly re­ceived this beard oil, and though it’s nor­mal­ly out of my price range ($25 plus ship­ping) I got a good deal on it from Huckberry. I like its woodsy scent, the cedar­wood & pinewood es­sen­tial oils are a good com­bo, but it’s def­i­nite­ly less vis­cous (it ar­rived frozen) than any oth­er oil I’ve tried, and doesn’t come with a drop­per. This means it is get­ting used up re­al­ly fast. Unless you’re su­per picky about the types of oil used and its sourcing, you can get a sim­i­lar pro­duct for sig­nif­i­cant­ly less in a va­ri­ety of places.

This was one of the sam­ples that I got in my first at­tempt at beard oil­ing. It was my fa­vorite, so I bought a prop­er bot­tle ($15 plus ship­ping). The name is spot on. It smells like a wood­shop. What’s not to like about that?

I felt like I took a big gam­ble with this, but it def­i­nite­ly paid off. This amaz­ing groom­ing kit (£94) came with 4 trav­el-sized oils (Hermes, Ares, Zeus, Eros), trim­ming shears, and a badass wood­en comb. Each of the oils smell good enough to eat, and kind of leave every­thing else I’ve re­viewed so far in the dust. Seriously the best stuff I’ve tried. I’ll have to use it par­si­mo­nious­ly.

Combs

I knew I need­ed a de­cent wood comb for the beard, the Conair comb I’ve been us­ing for my hair for a bil­lion years ain’t got what it takes to clear a swath through my tan­gle, and I want­ed some­thing wood­en to ab­sorb the ex­cess oil. I bought a cheap neem wood comb from Amazon and it’s done a great job. I want­ed to find some­thing a bit bet­ter qual­i­ty and made in the USA, if pos­si­ble. All I could scrounge up at the time was Sierra Legacy Hardwood Combs. What I got was a great comb, but not for my beard. Now I’ve stum­bled across a few oth­er beard comb op­tions, but haven’t picked any­thing yet.